Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Ugly Training

After taking a look at my previous posts it has becoming incredibly clear that I am only posting highlights of my training. People keep saying things like, “wow your training is ridiculous/ epic/ making me feel like less of a man… you are such a cool dude/ beast/ sexy hybrid animal who could run himself to death” How flattering. But utterly false. I want to share the less glamorous training so you get that it isn’t all setting pr’s and shattering ceilings. In fact it is almost none of that.

My training has been consistent from last November until now. I have missed probably 2 weeks in that time due to sickness. At that time my fitness was such that a continuous 20 min swim was all I could manage. Forget about a 2 hour bike ride. 23 mph was a thoroughly taxing effort. The climate of the Dominican had something to do with it but my standard run pace was about 8:30-9 min/mile. It has come a long way since then but the bottom line is the everyday stuff is mindless steady training. Sometimes it feels good and is respectable. More often than not it is shamefully slow. I sometimes stop to walk during runs where things aren’t firing. I go on rides where I don’t take my speedometer because it would just annoy me and make me do stupid things in training. I specifically pick running routes where no one will see me because I want to be alone in my slowness and shameful turdgery.

I don’t hesitate to be all sorts of flashy when I am doing race simulations as I am a vain peacock of a man but I would say the big workouts that seem awesome make up about 1 percent of my training over the last year. The rest is steady consistency. It’s the best. No fireworks and not huge hours relatively but it works for me.

For example… today I got up and ran/ waddled through a medium run. Super slow. I have run this route probably a good 5 minutes faster feeling really easy but today wasn’t the day. That doesn’t mean it was worthless. I was outside watching the sun come up on a trail system all to myself…

PRs are meant for races. Training PRs happen but aren’t the goal. Enjoy the process and don’t chase numbers. Let them come to you.

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People Say Awesome Stuff... I just parrot it.

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The daily toll is satisfying but arduous on the whole, not some bounding, joyous nature romp described in the magazines. Zen runners, joggers, running poets, and the like may say different but their euphoric selves are generally nowhere to be seen on the dark sleeting mornings.